Natasha Lomas
Writer
The Latest from Natasha Lomas
Duck.com now points to DuckDuckGo, not Google
Non-tracking search engine, DuckDuckGo, is now a little easier to find online after the company acquired the premium generic domain name duck.com — thereby shaving a few letters off its usual
Google CEO won’t rule out relaunching in China
Members of the House Judiciary committee have today closely questioned Google’s CEO about the company’s intentions in China, following reports this summer it’s planning a controver
Watch Google CEO Sundar Pichai testify in Congress — on bias, China and more
Google CEO Sundar Pichai has managed to avoid the public political grillings that have come for tech leaders at Facebook and Twitter this year. But not today. Today he will be in front of the House Ju
Apple Pay finally launches in Germany
Apple’s mobile payment technology has finally launched in Germany, some four years after it debuted in the U.S. On its newly launched Apple Pay website for Germany, Apple lists partner banks and
Seized cache of Facebook docs raise competition and consent questions
A UK parliamentary committee has published the cache of Facebook documents it dramatically seized last week. The documents were obtained by a legal discovery process by a startup that’s suing t
Europe dials up pressure on tech giants over election security
The European Union has announced a package of measures intended to step up efforts and pressure on tech giants to combat democracy-denting disinformation ahead of the EU parliament elections next May.
Union’s human rights challenge to Deliveroo dismissed by UK High Court
A UK union that has been fighting to win collective bargaining rights for gig economy riders who provide delivery services via Deliveroo’s platform has had its claim for a judicial review of an
Google ‘incognito’ search results still vary from person to person, DDG study finds
A study of Google search results by anti-tracking rival DuckDuckGo has suggested that escaping the so-called ‘filter bubble’ of personalized online searches is a perniciously hard problem
Oath agrees to pay $5M to settle charges it violated children’s privacy
TechCrunch’s Verizon-owned parent, Oath, an ad tech division made from the merging of AOL and Yahoo, has agreed to pay around $5 million to settle charges that it violated a federal childrenR
‘Google You Owe Us’ claimants aren’t giving up on UK Safari workaround suit
Lawyers behind a UK class-action style compensation litigation against Google for privacy violations have filed an application requesting permission to appeal against a recent High Court ruling block
DeepMind claims early progress in AI-based predictive protein modelling
Google -owned AI specialist, DeepMind, has claimed a “significant milestone” in being able to demonstrate the usefulness of artificial intelligence to help with the complex task of predict
Lime tries to back-peddle on VP’s line on why it hired Definers
Scooter startup Lime has sought to back peddle on an explanation given by its VP of global expansion late last week when asked why it had hired the controversial PR firm, Definers Public Affairs. The
DoJ charges Autonomy founder with fraud over $11BN sale to HP
U.K. entrepreneur turned billionaire investor Mike Lynch has been charged with fraud in the U.S. over the 2011 sale of his enterprise software company. Lynch sold Autonomy, the big data company he fou
Enterprise AR is an opportunity to ‘do well by doing good,’ says General Catalyst
A founder-investor panel on augmented reality (AR) technology here at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin suggests growth hopes for the space have regrouped around enterprise use-cases, after the VR consumer h
Agtech startup Imago AI is using computer vision to boost crop yields
Presenting onstage today in the 2018 TC Disrupt Berlin Battlefield is Indian agtech startup Imago AI, which is applying AI to help feed the world’s growing population by increasing crop yields and r
Edtech unicorn Udacity lays off 125 people in global strategy shift
Learning platform Udacity is to axe a big chunk of its workforce — which looks to be between a fifth and a quarter — as part of a global reorganization effort, according to VentureBeat.
Lime claims it didn’t know controversial PR firm Definers would sling mud at rivals
Scooter startup Lime has confirmed it hired Definers but claimed it didn’t know the controversial PR firm would try to smear its rivals. The company was speaking during an on stage interview her
How a startup mindset can help the refugee crisis
Startup entrepreneurs have a crucial role to play in building a more agile response to the global refugee crisis and also helping to change the narrative around displaced people, TechCrunch Disrupt Be
Uber’s bill for 2016 breach and cover-up rises by $1M+ on EU fines
The legal bill for Uber’s 2016 data breach, which affected some 57 million customers, revealing names, email address and phone numbers, has increased by more than a million dollars. Two months
‘The problem is Facebook,’ lawmakers from nine countries tell Zuckerberg’s accountability stand-in
A grand committee of international parliamentarians empty-chaired Mark Zuckerberg at a hearing earlier today, after the Facebook founder snubbed repeat invitations to face questions about malicious,